Several articles and publications have attempted to deal with the engineering of a fractured reservoir. Among these is a book authored by E. S. Romm entitled "Fluid Flow in Fractured Rocks", and published by Nedra Publishing House, Moscow, Russia in 1966. The author cites laboratory research done in Russia, Europe, and the United States through 1966 on fluid flow through fractures. This book deals mainly with the theoretical formulation of fluid flow equations using Romm's own work and that of others. All topics concerning single-phase, two-phase flow, gas flow, and water imbibition are discussed. The book also presents some laboratory work done on fluid flow in very tight fractures (0.25 to 2.9 microns) and some two-phase systems.
In a text book published in 1982 by Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., New York, N.Y., entitled "Fundamentals of Fractured Reservoir Engineering", T. D. Van Golf-Racht tries to integrate existing published material into a complete book on fractured reservoir engineering. His aim is to present new analytical tools to engineers and geologists for examining fractured reservoirs, since conventional reservoir evaluation techniques do not apply to fractured reservoirs.
A book written in 1980 by L. H. Reiss entitled "The Reservoir Engineering Aspects of Fractured Formations" is a primer on fractured reservoir engineering. This book was published by Gulf Publishing Co., Houston, Tex. It covers the basic problems for fractured reservoir evalution, but only presents published solutions without substantial theoretical or experimental backup. It is a good first book to read for fractured reservoir engineering.
Another book, written in 1980 by R. Aguilera, entitled "Naturally Fractured Reservoirs", is an organized collection of papers without any conclusions. This book was published by the Petroleum Publishing Co. located in Tulsa, Okla. It presents the data and correlations without expanding on the ideas. This book does have a good summary of pertinent papers.
A new book written by R. A. Nelson entitled "Geologic Analysis of Naturally Fractured Reservoirs", published in 1985, was written to supplement the other books listed above. Nelson wrote this book to present a rock data approach to fractured reservoir evaulation. This book was published by the Gulf Publishing Co., Houston, Tex.
None of these publications have resolved the problem of fingering caused by large fractures in oil fields during secondary recovery operations. This problem occurs because large fractures can become conduits from injection to production wells which cause an inefficient sweep to occur. Therefore, what is needed is a method to decrease fluid bypass so better sweep efficiency can be obtained.